Abortion. Harvesting baby parts. It's all over the news. And rightfully so.
I was a bit skeptical when the first video came out and watched the edited version. It didn't look good for Planned Parenthood, but figured they find a way to spin their way out of it or whatever. Then a second and third video, which I honestly didn't watch. More fuel for the conservative right to the anti-abortion/pro-life movement for them. Planned Parenthood/Pro-Choice/Pro-abortion defenders defended it with the expected "it was edited such and such" without really watching it.
Blind support on both sides. What I expected and it didn't affect my previous opinion or behaviors regarding abortion.
When the fourth video that "proved" Planned Parenthood was "harvesting" and "selling" baby parts came out as the most damning video, I figured I'd better watch it and see what was so damning about it.
It was horrifying. But what horrified may not be what you think. Assuming that Planned Parenthood isn't doing anything illegal (which many argue they are), I was horrified by the manner of the conversation.
They called this child's organs "product." They gave it a monetary value. They giggled. They laughed. They callously talked about how useful (and financially valuable) this baby was in pieces. They talked about how it was more valuable "in tact" ie actually born. I was disgusted.
And I kept watching. I heard them crush a skull and the sift through the parts asking if there was any use for the eyeball. No.
That child would've had use for that eyeball.
And that was for a child well within the first trimester at 11.6 weeks, which is legal to abort in every state. It had identifiable HUMAN body parts that apparently have monetary (or research, whatever) value...but not enough value to be allowed to continue to live after doing nothing wrong.
What have we become? Where in our human existence do we casually talk about what we can gain after strategically crushing and destroying the most innocent, vulnerable of life? How can someone look at those little parts and not see life? Not see a being worth protecting? A being worth being given a chance to just...live?
It was in that moment that I solidified my opinion on abortion. I decided I would not just say "Well, I'm pro-choice, but I hope a woman would choose not to have an abortion."
No. It needs to be illegal again. And I'll tell you why. It has little to do with God or anecdotal stories about people that could've been aborted but weren't and grew up to be movers and shakers in our world. Because I know that has little impact on the blind defenders of Planned Parenthood and abortion.
Here's the deal. I'm all for the women's pro-choice movement. Here are the choices women have:
- The pill (hundreds of different kinds of birth control pills)
- An IUD
- Condoms
- Abstinence (and do not shake your head at this one because I believe in women and men enough to know they can and do abstain).
If women have the capacity to decide to have an abortion after getting pregnant, they have the capacity to get on the pill (or whatever) before getting pregnant.
I'm not trying to defund Planned Parenthood, they offer valuable services to communities who need it. I just want to reappropriate their funding: make abortion illegal (except in extreme circumstances like a medical necessity, rape, incest, etc...like any other major medical procedure (or prescription) that is illegal unless deemed necessary by medical professionals) and whatever funding Planned Parenthood got for abortions goes to expanding the resources of prevention. Read that last sentence again before you freak out: abortion would be made illegal except in cases where the pregnancy is a danger to the mother, result of rape or incest, or other extreme circumstances. Which is a very small percentage of the 40 million abortions every year.
Put condoms on every corner. Throw the Pill from parade floats. Increase and improve sex education, which means abstinence only states must suck it up and provide REAL sex education. All in an effort to make sure there is NO excuse for an unwanted pregnancy.
Which, honestly, there isn't really now either. Abortion is simply not a necessary "choice" anymore.
I watched an episode of the Midwife (great show) that takes place in the 1940s in Britain where one mother had more children than she could handle. Like, she literally couldn't feed them all. And then she got pregnant again. She was desperate to get rid of the unborn child because she couldn't even take care of the ones she had. She went to get a back alley abortion...which almost killed her.
I cried for her. I sympathized with the desperation. The feeling of the lack of choices. But do you know how that episode started? She asked for the Pill (a new technology at the time), but was denied. Which is what led to the attempted and dangerous abortion.
Can you imagine that today? Someone walking into a public health service asking for birth control and being denied? Nope. Never. I've been married 10 years and have two children. Why have I never been desperate enough to seek an abortion? We use birth control.
And THAT is why abortion is not necessary and should not be legal. Women don't need that choice anymore. We have plenty of other choices other than wondering if Planned Parenthood is strategically murdering tiny humans so they can use their organs for profit or research (and that is seriously not the point of this blog).
Women do have choices. This isn't the stone age, 1800s, or even 1940s anymore. Want to have sex but don't want to get pregnant? Super. Choose 1) the pill 2) an IUD 3) condoms. Look. Choices. Choices that women didn't have even in the middle of the last century. Abortion is not new, it's only gotten safer for women. What is new is all the options we have to make sure it doesn't get to that point.
Oh I forgot, there is option 4)have irresponsible sex and possibly get pregnant. Under my plan, this means you deal with the consequences of choosing life-making activities without using life-preventing technology. You continue make that life because it did nothing wrong and doesn't deserve to die (and yes, even "clusters of cells" die...skin cells die all the time. Death is death. The difference is skin cells don't have the potential to become a complete human being within a matter of months if just left alone and not sucked out of the womb).
Life has consequences. Choices (and non-choices) have consequences. Sometimes they are hard. But if we give women (and men) all the opportunities, resources, and education in the world to prevent an unwanted pregnancy and they don't take advantage, than they have a responsibility to see it through. It's a nine month commitment at most if she wants...and I bet she'll use birth control next time (and it's less than a murder sentence since so many conservatives call abortion murder). Repeat offenders would be very few if we actually expect people to live with the consequences of their actions.
Because that is not a cluster of cells. By 11.6 weeks that life has organs, as seen in that video. Organs that would help it live, breathe, think, love, see the beauty of life. A body that would have grown, thrived, been loved by someone, and impacted other lives.
It has intrinsic value. Just like the life of a majestic lion or endangered eagles egg. The difference is the potential for that human life is even greater, yet we protect it less. The only philosophy class I took in college was Ethics. The only thing I took from that class is that we place value/priority on something/life based on its potential. What could have more potential than the beginnings of life in the womb?
By all accounts, no one likes abortion. Women don't like getting them. Doctors don't like doing them. Babies don't like getting them. So why do we do them when they simply are not necessary in our day in age? Because we are SO hung up on individual freedom that we can't even see it's wrong to destroy the most vulnerable of lives who can't speak up for themselves.
Women have so many freedoms on how to handle their sexuality and family planning it's laughable when people say they support abortion because they want women to have a choice? They DID have choices. Actually planning ahead choices, not "oh crap, we really should've stopped at the drug store and gotten some condoms" choices. And her/his poor planning or crappy decision doesn't suddenly give her rights of individual freedom priority over the life she created to simply exist. Support her during that process, give her all the medical and emotional support she needs, but do not allow her to end life because of a bad choice when she had all the opportunity to make a better one.
We are so hung up on individual rights that we can't even say, "Hey man, that's wrong. Sorry if that inconveniences you for a few months, but ending that sweet, precious, innocent life is wrong." Even when she had plenty of opportunity to prevent it.
So again, here's the plan: don't defund Planned Parenthood. Make abortion illegal (except in extreme circumstances) and use those funds and resources to get Planned Parenthood, community organizations, and other public health agencies to team up and make sure birth control and sex education is available to anyone and everyone. If we don't make abortion illegal than it will continue to be a safety net and that's just not ok when it could be avoided all together.
What do you think of the plan? Can we do it? I think we can if both sides, but especially my moderate peers stand up and say "THIS is what we want. THIS actually helps women. THIS actually prevents unwanted pregnancy. THIS saves lives."
